Time, Holidays, Units of Measurement

In Thailand, it is now Tuesday, December 24, 2024 at 7:00 am

Thai Time Units   *   Holidays   *   Units of measurement   *   History of world time

Time in Thailand

The year 2008 in Thailand is 2551, like the year 2007 was 2550. Thailand uses Buddhist Era (B.E.) dates, not Christian dates (A.D.). To translate between the two, just add/subtract 543.

Thailand's Buddhist Era years are one year behind that of Myanmar (Burma) and Sri Lanka, where the year is 2544. (The Western Christian world had a similar situation until it synchronized years in 1592, thanks to Pope Gregory XIII's imposition.) The Thai New Year date change now occurs on January 1, not April 13 (the date Buddha attained enlightenment, "Songkran"), but the latter is still the festive Thai "New Year" long holiday.

The time zone in Thailand is +7 Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). If you're like most people, you may find it straining to know the time zone in other countries and cities, e.g., for phone calls and bank transactions. Windows 95+ has built-in time zones for other parts of the world, available by a right mouse click on the time on the bottom right of your Windows screen, then choose Adjust Time/Date, then choose the Time Zone tab (just view, don't change, of course). However, after doing mental arithmetic, many people still forget if we're X hours ahead or X hours behind our associates. A solution is either a time zone wheel, or a software timezone program listing the cities of key associates and the times there, or my preference: wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/time-zone/ (assumes your PC's clock is accurate and your time zone set properly).

Keep in mind that the day will end in Tokyo and New Zealand before Thailand, and the sun rises here before it does in Europe or America. In fact, if you send international courier shipments to the U.S., you will be able to send them "faster" than you will receive them. For example, when it's high noon Tuesday in Thailand, it's midnite Monday-Tuesday in Washington, D.C., and the 9pm summertime sun is setting on Monday in California.

Thais keep track of the time of day differently than foreigners, and people sometimes miss appointments due to miscommunications. It's not common in Bangkok professional circles any more, but it does happen on occasion, especially with Thais who are new to foreigners. The Thais split up the day into four 6-hour sectors, whereby "two o'clock" could mean 8:00am, 2:00pm, 8:00pm or 2:00am.

The best way to prevent this is by specifying the time clearly in one of the languages, e.g., either "2 o'clock p.m.", or military time ("naleeka") 14:00, or "two o'clock in the afternoon" (in Thai, "bai song mohng"). It may be best to use the Thai language if you can, because Thais who are unaccustomed to English may get their English mixed up and say "in the afternoon" when they mean "at night" or "in the morning".

While I don't want to exaggerate potential time-of-day problems, I do know a remarkable number of people who have experienced this on occasion, in addition to a few of my own unfortunate experiences. Thus, the following table is offered for reference, with the time of day in the Thai language:

European time	Thai visualization	spoken Thai	Military time
12:00 midnite	midnite in Thai mind	tian khun	yee sip see naleekah	24:00
1:00 am	1:00 in Thai mind	tee nung	nung naleekah	1:00
2:00 am	2:00 in Thai mind	tee sawng	sawng naleekah	2:00
3:00 am	3:00 in Thai mind	tee saahm	saahm naleekah	3:00
4:00 am	4:00 in Thai mind	tee see	see naleekah	4:00
5:00 am	5:00 in Thai mind	tee ha	ha naleekah	5:00
6:00 am	6:00 in Thai mind	hok mong chao	hok naleekah	6:00
7:00 am	1:00 in Thai mind	nung mong chao or jet mong chao	jet naleekah	7:00
8:00 am	2:00 in Thai mind	sawng mong chao	pahdt naleekah	8:00
9:00 am	3:00 in Thai mind	saahm mong chao	kow naleekah	9:00
10:00 am	4:00 in Thai mind	see mong chao	sip naleekah	10:00
11:00 am	5:00 in Thai mind	ha mong chao	sip et naleekah	11:00
12:00 noon	half-day in Thai mind	tawn tian	sip sawng naleekah	12:00
1:00 pm	1:00 in Thai mind	bai mong	sip saahm naleekah	13:00
2:00 pm	2:00 in Thai mind	bai sawng mong	sip see naleekah	14:00
3:00 pm	3:00 in Thai mind	bai saahm mong	sip ha naleekah	15:00
4:00 pm	4:00 in Thai mind	bai see mong	sip hok naleekah	16:00
5:00 pm	5:00 in Thai mind	ha mong yen	sip jet naleekah	17:00
6:00 pm	6:00 in Thai mind	hok mong yen	sip pahdt naleekah	18:00
7:00 pm	1:00 in Thai mind	thum nung	sip kow naleekah	19:00
8:00 pm	2:00 in Thai mind	sawng thum	yee sip naleekah	20:00
9:00 pm	3:00 in Thai mind	saahm thum	yee sip et naleekah	21:00
10:00 pm	4:00 in Thai mind	see thum	yee sip sawng naleekah	22:00
11:00 pm	5:00 in Thai mind	ha thum	yee sip saahm naleekah	23:00
12:00 pm	midnite in Thai mind	tian khun	yee sip see naleekah	24:00

In addition to the regular numbers in the military time column, some of the other words above will also be recognized by anyone who lives here a while, due to multiple usage. For example:

naleeka = clock
mong = hour
tawn chao = morning
tawn bai = afternoon
tawn yen = late afternoon, as yen means cool

tawn khun = nighttime, and is not used in clock talk. khun nee = tonite, wan nee = today

Office hours usually start from 8:30-9:00am, with a one hour lunchtime usually starting between 12:00 and 12:30, and you should be able to catch people back in the office from 1:30 until somewhere between 4:30 and 5:30pm. Most government offices close at 4:30, and many will close their doors from newly arriving people at 3:30. Banks run from 9:30 to 3:30.

Restaurants usually take their last orders between 10pm and 11:30pm, though some stay open very late if not 24 hours (one of the real nice things about Bangkok). Western fast food places close earlier than in the west, often 9:30 to 10:00pm.

By law, entertainment places are supposed to close at 2am, and the vast majority do so. Unfortunately, many lively discotheques and other popular places don't get going until around 11pm. This is reflected in their clientele.

For more information on operating hours of some specific services, e.g., for different kinds of buses, please visit the appropriate pages here on ThailandGuru.com

Be careful about wall clocks you buy in Thailand. Most keep accurate time, but some do not. What I do is synchronize them with my watch at the start, and then see how much they drift over time. As for the accuracy of your watch, you can synchronize and re-check it every evening at 6pm when all the radios and TV stations, and most soundovers in public places, play the national anthem. This is usually preceeded by beeps for the last few seconds before 6:00:00.

Holidays

A list of the national work holidays is given below. However, the exact day of the year of some of these will vary, as noted. The ones affected are those based on the lunar calendar, rather than the 365-day solar calendar. Lunar calendar events usually come on a full moon.

Before Thailand (and many western civilizations) switched to the solar 365-day calendar, a lunar calendar was used, whereby one month, or moonth, was 29 or 30 days, e.g., full moon to full moon (29.5 days). Since a solar year is not exactly 12 moonths, there is a shift from year to year between the lunar and solar calendar dates. Notably, the Thai lunar holidays that are in common with Chinese holidays and the holidays of other past lunar calendar cultures may not coincide with each other on the same date, because there are variations in the different implementations of the ancient lunar calendars.

(The moon orbits the Earth in 29.5 days. The Earth orbits the sun in 365¼ days. The February 29 leap year is due to that ¼ day. Western civilizations in ancient times also used various lunar calendars like eastern ones, whereby a leap year happened once every three years by adding an extra month instead of an extra day. When the west standardized upon a solar calendar, the 12 moonths were stretched longer than one moon cycle by an extra day or two, i.e., 30 or 31 days, so that 12 moonths added up to 365 days.)

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